Budget 2026: Budget fails to meet grassroots housing needs, NGO says

Low-income tenants criticised the Hong Kong budget for failing to address grassroots' housing needs. 

This came after a joint-press conference by seven non-governmental organisations for grassroots' livelihood on Wednesday. 

The latest budget speech did not include new measures to support low-income earners struggling with the city’s surging rental costs. 

Chloe Au, a member of Concerning Grassroots Housing Rights Alliance, said there should be more housing subsidies to help subdivided flat tenants who are facing mass eviction in light of the Basic Housing Units Ordinance. 

The law is set to come into effect in March which will require landlords to upgrade conditions of the city’s subdivided flats by 2030. 

According to government estimates, there are about 33,000 subdivided flats that failed to meet government’s minimum condition requirements. 

The concern group also called for the reintroduction of monthly cash allowance, an amount ranging from HK$1,300 to HK$3,900, for those who are still waiting for public housing.

The average waiting time for Hong Kong’s public housing unit rose to 5.6 years last year, according to the Housing Bureau.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said in his budget speech on Wednesday that the government would finish building an additional 196,000 public housing units in the next five years. 

Chan reiterated the government’s target to finish building another 30,000 light public housing units by March 2028. 

Light public housing units are essentially modular integrated construction units that were built in factories and assembled on-site which are quicker to build to solve Hong Kong’s pressing housing shortage.

Commenting on this year’s budget measures, Au also said it did not address grassroots housing needs as private rent prices surged by 4% last year. 

“More subdivided flat tenants are becoming homeless as landlords are evicting them batches at a time,” said Au, referring to how landlords are clearing up entire apartments for renovation in order to meet the latest minimum residential units requirements. 

“Evicted subdivided flat tenants can apply for government-funded transitional housing but the potential rent could hike up to HK$8,000 a month in the second year. This is very unstable and stressful for them,” Au said. 

The Basic Housing Units Ordinance, which will take effect in March, requires landlords of subdivided units to refurbish and upgrade their properties to comply with the minimum standards of living conditions, according to Housing Bureau.This requires an apartment to be no smaller than 80 square feet, comes with a separate toilet, and at least one openable window.

Affected subdivided units residents can apply for transitional housing funded by the government which cost from HK$1,575 to HK$6,000 a month in the first year but the rent could hike up substantially in the second year, according to the Housing Bureau. 

As of 2025, there are 18,400 transitional housing units but only one-fifth of these units are available for subdivided flats applicants.

Joy Yeung, 60, a warehouse keeper, has been waiting for years for a public housing unit. Yeung said that the government should bring back the Cash Allowance Scheme which ended last year for citizens who are waiting for public housing rather than allocating funds to build LPH and transitional housing.